a drought of photographed trophy ceremonies

This week Punxsutawney Phil came out of his burrow while tennis trophies went into hiding. The scant number of prizes doled out had to do with a skeletal women’s calendar — they were all playing Fed Cup ties — while the men only played one tourney, in Chile.

And even then, the singles final at the Movistar Open got decided by a walkover due to Juan Monaco‘s ankle injury. Thus, no on court ceremony for winner Fernando Gonzalez. Doubles winners Jose Acasuso and Sebastian Prieto (pictured above) won when Monaco injured himself in the final playing with partner Maximo Gonzalez.

Back in business: Meanwhile, Bulgarian Sesil Karatancheva continues her post-ban winning streak with a second title in as many weeks (that’s 19 consecutive match wins). The first tourney was in Surprise, Arizona, where she had to play three matches in a day to win the pre-qualiifying event — yep, that’s the qualifying for the qualfying(!).

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Re Sesil, despite her doping conviction, her back-to-back wins were amazing. As a player myself, it’s incredibly punishing for your body when you have to play more than 2 competitive matches a day. I guess it’s easier for an 18 yr old. Bottomline, her performance has earned my respect. No matter what happen in Midland (tough first match against a red hot Lisicki) she will finally be back on the ranking (probably in the 300s).